bodhi tree swaying

There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times about people’s relationship to their frozen embryos. Because IVF treatment is so expensive and success is so hit-or-miss, couples generally create more embryos than they need. Those remaining after conception are stored in deep freezes. But couples become attached to those embryos — blastocysts, really — and can have trouble letting go of them.

The article gives an overview of different relationships with these embryos. Some people are willing to let them be used for research. Some are willing to donate them to other couples. But others are unwilling to have them donated, even though it would help another family get through the painful situation they themselves have experienced, because they regard these as “their” embryos and are unsure of what kind of life they wold have with a new family.

Some people are simply so …

Scientific American reports:

In Colorado voters shot down Amendment 48, the “Personhood Initiative,” by a three-to-one margin. The measure would have defined human life as starting “from the moment of fertilization”—which in essence would have made abortion a crime and put the brakes on embryonic stem cell research there.

I’m not pro-abortion by any stretch of the imagination, and neither is my wife. We (or more strictly she) would never have an abortion, and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to have an abortion. I do support abortion (albeit with some reluctance) when the life or health of the mother is seriously in danger. I can understand when someone chooses to have an abortion because of some serious developmental abnormality of the fetus. I’m pro-contraception. I’m pro sex-education (countries with better sex ed have lower teen pregnancy rates).

But I consider the idea of …